THE COMING OF THE FRIARS
Three streets in Chester in the neighbourhood of the Church of S. Martin
bear the names of Grey Friars, Black Friars, and White Friars
respectively. During the thirteenth century numbers of begging friars,
clad in simple grey or black or white tunics, came to Chester and
settled in the poorest quarters of the city. Like the early disciples of
Christ, whose lives of poverty they sought to imitate, they carried with
them neither gold nor silver, and walked unshod, begging their food and
shelter as they journeyed from town to town.
Their simple teaching appealed to the poor, who soon began to look upon
them as their best friends. For they brought the Gospel of Christ to
them in their streets, and tended the sick and the aged amid their
squalid homes. They were forbidden by the rules of their Orders to
receive either money or lands.
The first to arrive in Chester were the Dominicans or Black Friars, who
settled near the Watergate when Randle Blundeville was earl. The old
palace of the Stanleys formed part of the home of the Black Friars. They
were followed a few years later by the Franciscans or Grey Friars who
also lived by the Watergate, near the spot on which the Linen Hall was
afterwards erected, and in the reign of Edward the First the White
Friars or Carmelites took up their abode in the neighbourhood of White
Friars Street.
Unlike the monks, the friars had at first no fixed homes of their own,
and preached at wooden crosses set up at the street corners. Afterwards,
with the alms they received from the people and the legacies from rich
men who admired their devout lives, each of the different Orders of
friars built for themselves a permanent dwelling-place or friary, to
which a church in time was added.
The Church of the Carmelites must have been one of great beauty. Some of
the glazed coloured tiles which formed the pavement of the building may
be seen in the Grosvenor Museum. Excavations have been made at the spot
where the tiles were found, and three feet lower down the workmen came
across broken columns and bases of a large Roman building. Mediaeval
Chester was built on the ruins of the ancient Roman city. A doorway in
an old house called 'The Friars' was part of the Carmelite Friary.
The friars studied medicine and devoted themselves particularly to the
care of lepers. They also built schools for the children of the poor.
The Dominicans were also skilful engineers, and Edward the First
employed them in making wells and laying water-pipes in the city.
Unfortunately some of the friars did not live up to their early vows of
poverty, and the rules which S. Francis and S. Dominic had drawn up for
them. When wealth poured in upon them they became jealous of one
another, and quarrels and disturbances frequently arose between them.
The Records of Chester tell of many violent acts on the part of the
Dominicans and Carmelites, the latter of whom, armed with cudgels, were
wont to roam in the night time through the city to the terror of the
inhabitants.
The monks of the thirteenth century had also become idle and luxurious.
They had, as you have already read, become great landowners, and
received the manorial dues from the manors which belonged to them. The
Abbots of Vale Royal ruled with a rod of iron. The poor people rebelled,
and fights between them and the monks were frequent. They laid their
complaints before the king, and good Queen Philippa interceded for them
as she did for the burghers of Calais, but the abbot was generally able
to prove his 'rights', and the people obtained little satisfaction. The
wealth of the monasteries was also greatly increased by the cultivation
of crops and the sale of their wool. But the richer they became, the
more they neglected their spiritual duties. The poor could no longer
look to them for their spiritual teaching or for charity and good
works, and so gladly turned to the friars who for a time ministered to
their needs so well.
Monks and friars alike were bitterly attacked in Edward the Third's
reign in a poem written by William Langland. In this poem, which is
called 'The Vision of Piers Plowman', the poet speaks of the ignorance
and sloth of the monks, one of whom is made to confess that he cannot
even chant the Lord's Prayer.
I cannot the Pater Noster as the priest it syngethe,
But I can Rimes of Robin Hood and of Randall of Chestre.
A few exceptions there were to the general rule. In his quiet retreat in
the Abbey of S. Werburgh, Ranulf Higden wrote a work called
'Polychronicon', which contained a history of the world from the
Creation to his own day, with geographical descriptions of the different
countries of the world, and the favourite mediaeval legends of Babylon
and Rome. The book is valuable because it is one of the earliest pieces
of literature written in the language of mixed Norman and Saxon which is
our mother tongue to-day. When printing was invented in the fifteenth
century, the Polychronicon was one of the books printed by Caxton the
first English printer.
Many of the churches in Cheshire show us that the masons and builders of
Edward the Third's long reign made great progress in their art.
We have seen how the thirteenth-century workmen learned to group a
number of lancets together under one hood, and to shape the lancet heads
like a clover leaf by the addition of cusps. In the fourteenth century
the space above a row of lancet or trefoil-headed lights was filled in
with a number of geometrical figures such as circles and foils. Hence
the name of Geometrical or Decorated has been given to the work of this
period. The large east windows of many of our Cheshire churches are made
up in this way. The patterns of flowing lines thus produced are called
'bar tracery'. There are Decorated windows in the aisles of the choir
and south transept of Chester Cathedral.
[Illustration: NORTH-WEST VIEW OF NANTWICH CHURCH]
Windows and arches were now made wider than in the previous century. The
builders of the Pointed period sought after height; those of the
Decorated period aimed rather at breadth and openness.
[Illustration: GEOMETRICAL WINDOW, SOUTH TRANSEPT, CHESTER CATHEDRAL]
The fourteenth-century masons studied nature carefully, and put masses
of carved fruit or flowers or leaves in the capitals of their columns.
The arches of the nave of Chester Cathedral prove this fact.
A favourite ornament of the Decorated period is the crocket, a
projecting bunch of foliage added to pinnacles, the hoods of arches, and
the canopies of niches and tombs. Another device is the ball-flower
carved in the mouldings. The ball-flower is as sure a sign of Decorated
mouldings as the dog-tooth was in those of the Early English period.
[Illustration: ALTAR TOMBS, MACCLESFIELD]
The choir of Stockport Parish Church is a beautiful example of the
Decorated style, and the greater portions of Macclesfield, Nantwich, and
Prestbury Parish Churches belong to the same period. In many other
churches you will find some detail, generally a window or a doorway or
an altar tomb, which will show you some of the features of this style.
In the Early English and Decorated periods a spire was sometimes added
to the tower, as at Astbury and Bebington. The spire grew out of the
pyramid-shaped roof with which the towers of Norman churches were
covered.
In the low-lying portions of the Cheshire plain, where stone was scarce
but timber plentiful, the framework of a church was often built of wood.
In the village of Warburton, on the banks of the Mersey, is a
fourteenth-century wooden church, which served as the chapel of a priory
that was established here by the Normans. The name itself
('Werburgh-ton') speaks to us of S. Werburgh, the patron saint of the
Abbey of Chester, and a field by the river is still called the Abbey
Croft; the stone coffins within the church once contained the bones of
monks who lived here.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF WARBURTON TIMBER CHURCH. FOURTEENTH CENTURY]
The arches within are made of rough-hewn timber, rudely shaped with the
axe. Lantern pegs of buck-horn from the deer that once roamed the
woodlands of Dunham Massey are fixed on the oak pillars; the roof is
supported by stout cross-beams. The brick tower has been added at a
later day, and the south wall built when the timbers on that side of the
church collapsed. The timber churches of Lower Peover and Marton belong
to the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century.
Marton Church was the burial-place of the Davenports, who lived at
Marton Hall.
[Illustration: THE OLD PRIEST'S HOUSE, PRESTBURY]
The Davenports had a more splendid home at Bramhall, the oldest portions
of which were built when Edward the Third was king. The great hall at
Baguley was built about the same time. The massive upright posts are
cut from timber more than two feet square, and the spaces between them
filled with wickerwork and plaster. The open roof is supported by a
mighty 'tie-beam' and two uprights called 'queen-posts'[2]. The windows
are tall and the lights narrow, and separated from one another by oak
mullions.
[2] Sometimes the roof was held up by a single 'king-post' in
place of two queen-posts. The 'king-post' reached from the centre
of the tie-beam to the point of the roof.
Surely the men who built it had hearts of oak. The building reflects the
rugged character of the men of the days when 'knights were bold' and
'might was right'. In this hall we can picture old Sir William Baggiley
feasting with his family and his retainers, when the summons came from
his king to follow him to the French wars.
His effigy still rests in the hall that he himself perhaps built. It is
broken and battered, but enough remains to show us that the knights who
fought for Edward and the Black Prince had changed the fashion of their
war dress since the Crusades. A hood of mail still protects the head and
neck, but the suit of mail has given way to plates of steel riveted or
hooked together, so that the whole body is cased in armour.